Environmental Health & Safety

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

This presentation provides the researcher with a baseline understanding of the major regulatory issues they are responsible for regarding the protection of the health and safety of their employees, the research approval process and the environmental approvals and guidelines for working with radiological, biological and chemical hazards. Active links and how to navigate to the technical experts of the EH&S Department and how they can assist the researcher are available as well as updates and regulatory drivers from recent health and safety issues experienced at the UW and nationally.

Presented by:

Jude Van BurenDirector, Environmental Health and Safety

In 1973, Dr. Van Buren received her associate's degree in nursing and joined the Peace Corps soon after as a public health nurse in Ecuador and Paraguay, where she learned about the need for sanitation and the importance of environmental health. She returned to the US and completed her bachelor's degree in Environmental Health from the UW in 1984. She worked in public health for several years at the state and local level and received a master's and then a doctoral degree in public health from The Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore Maryland in 1998.

She has been a faculty member at The Evergreen State College in Olympia and conducted epidemiological investigations in public health at the State Department of Health. She served as an Assistant Secretary to the Secretary of Health for Washington State Department of Health in the Division of Epidemiology, Health Statistics, and Public Health Laboratories.

In 2009, Jude returned to the UW as the Director of Environmental Health & Safety, a service department that supports and monitors workplace safety and health practices at all UW campuses as well as ensures environmental protection. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the School of Public Health at the UW. She brings with her a wealth of experience, a passion for applied public health, and a philosophy that underlies her work: public health is about education.